Home

With the Jewish federation system's two partners for overseas needs negotiating their share of unrestricted federation funding -- while the pool of dollars they target declines -- a new book shows how one partner positioned itself through years of innovative strategy.

"Mission, Meaning, And Money: How the Joint Distribution Committee Became a Fundraising Innovator," by Mark I. Rosen, chronicles the evolving business model of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which provides relief for Jews in need as well as identity, culture, and social programs in more than 70 countries.

For years, JDC received almost all its money from the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and allocated the funds based on priorities it identified around the world, writes Rosen, who teaches in the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University and does strategic research and consulting for Jewish organizations. But by 2008, nine years after UJA merged with the Council of Jewish Federations and United Israel Appeal (UIA) to form United Jewish Communities (now called the Jewish Federations of North America, or JFNA), only 13 percent of its funding came from the overseas portions of federations' annual campaign revenues.

After the creation of the state of Israel, JDC took a backseat to the UIA with respect to federation dollars, and a 25/75 percent funding split between JDC and UIA stabilized in the early 1950s with JDC receiving the smaller portion, Rosen writes. Today, the same 25/75 still exists between JDC and the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), and for the last two years, JDC has been negotiating with JAFI for a larger portion of unrestricted JFNA funds (which currently amount to $130 million per year).

Rosen's book describes how in the face of the 25/75 split and other obstacles, JDC adopted creative fundraising strategies such as targeting wealthy donors for minimum gifts of $250,000, developing partnerships with individual federations such as the Parents and Children Together (PACT) program with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, raising money on its own in local communities without federations (and in federated communities with federations' consent), and giving board members a more active role than they have in most organizations. JDC has placed a high priority on "donor relations," teaching donors how their contributions to specific JDC programs can make a difference in places like Belarus, where Rosen outlines in one chapter how a JDC trip convinced a couple with Belarusian roots to donate $202,000, more than 20 times the figure they initially intended.

Even though 20 percent of current JDC funding is unrestricted, compared with 90 percent in 1993, the unrestricted money "is their oxygen," because it pays for rent, salaries, and all other expenses for running the organization, Rosen said in an interview with The Jewish State. Rosen's book outlines how JDC has been striving to gain more than 25 percent of the unrestricted federation funding for years, making JDC's latest effort to do so "nothing new," he said.

What is new, however, is JDC's April 29 notification to board members that if the federations don't change the 25/75 formula, JDC will raise money in the federations' backyards; up until now, as Rosen writes, JDC has had the policy of consulting with federations before fundraising in local communities to make sure their activities don't harm federations' annual campaigns. JDC would much rather work with federations, but might have changed its outlook because "their back is against the wall" with the current economic climate and declining federation dollars, Rosen told The Jewish State. Even though JFNA, JAFI, and JDC announced on May 17 that they will continue to cooperate -- meaning that for now, JDC won't raise local money without consulting federations -- the fact that they talked about doing otherwise shows they were serious, Rosen said.

Rosen said that he "stepped into the project agnostic," but from 80 interviews with Jewish leaders and other research, it became apparent that although federations lend JAFI more financial support than JDC, they have more respect for JDC as a business partner. That is because while JAFI as an organization is largely beholden to the Israeli government, JDC is "run like a American business," Rosen said. One federation official (who remained anonymous) stated in the book that "The only time that the Jewish Agency comes in is to ask us for money. JDC will come ... they say how are we doing? What areas do we need to beef up? Here are some things that are going on. No discussion about money. Stewarding the relationship."

Even though Jewish leaders hold JDC in a high regard, the organization still receives only 1/3 of the money JAFI does, and Rosen said "you sort of have to raise the question, 'Well, why?'" The answer, he said, is that the current funding model has "been going on for 80 years, and it's ideological," and Jewish leaders are reluctant to change it.

"It just doesn't reflect current reality," Rosen said.

Rosen also discovered that from his "sort of informal conversations with your typical Jewish involved person in the world, they don't know a lot about JDC." That is because JDC raises money in unconventional ways, and all of its projects are overseas. While the older generation of American Jews identify with JDC because they received direct assistance from the organization, JDC is "largely unknown or very poorly understood among everybody else," Rosen said.

"It's just not very visible," he said.

One major misconception is that JAFI is almost exclusively responsible for building the state of Israel while JDC only serves other constituencies like Jews in the former Soviet Union, Rosen said. In reality, one-third of JDC's budget is devoted to Israel, including community building and Jewish identity work, and the Israeli government follows JDC's lead in Israel by taking over some of their pilot programs there, Rosen said.

JDC's strategy is probably "10 years ahead of JAFI" and better suited to deal with the current climate, Rosen said. However, reaching out to more wealthy donors is not the solution to JDC's current funding issues, Rosen said, because JDC's problem is covering the costs of running the organization, and "donors don't necessarily like to give to overhead." Rather, donors like to support specific projects that help people in need.

"Everyone wants to give to specific programs and nobody wants to give to general funds anymore," Rosen said.

Although JDC's exact solution to the shortage of unrestricted funding isn't yet apparent, JDC still had the foresight of seeing "the writing on the wall" regarding the federation system's evolution and taking the steps to become a fundraising innovator, Rosen said.

"They did a magnificent job and they are a very, very effective organization," he said.

"Mission, Meaning, and Money" is available at Amazon.com.